Various disposable and inexpensive cooking utensils, such as pans for use in heating and/or cooking food products, such as hams, roasts, turkeys, etc. have become popular because they are relatively inexpensive and eliminate the need for pan cleaning after the heating and/or cooking of the food product has occurred. Such utensils are normally formed of thin gauge, inexpensive material, such as aluminum foil. Unless such thin gauge material is reinforced or the gauge of the material is significantly increased, handling of such utensils when loaded, may be hazardous unless extreme care is exercised. To improve the inherent strength of the pan by increasing the material gauge results in the cost becoming inordinately high thereby adversely affecting its marketability as a disposable items.
Reinforcing of the thin gauge pan by utilizing a handle or frame assembly therewith appears to be a practical and feasible way to overcome the shortcomings besetting thin gauge pans. Various prior reinforced pans are disclosed in Anders U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,038; and Sarnoff et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,817,812 and 4,852,760. The serious shortcomings of the Anders structure, however, are that it utilizes an inordinate number of components, and thus is awkward and expensive to assemble. In the Sarnoff et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,812 structure the frame assembly therein disclosed is not fixedly attached to the pan and thus, the loaded pan may inadvertently or accidentally become disassembled therefrom during handling. Furthermore, the frame assembly does not extend upwardly the full height of the pan side wall and thus, in certain instances might not provide stable lateral support for the loaded pan when being manually transported. The Sarnoff et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,852,760 structure on the other hand utilizes a handle assembly wherein a frame section thereof has opposite end segments which extend over and are crimped to a reinforcing bead formed in the pan rim. Care must be exercised in properly crimping the bead so as not to break the bead and adversely affect the strength of the pan and that the proper amount of crimping force is applied to provide a secure engagement between the pan and frame section. Furthermore, a wire bending fixture of complex shape is required and once the crimp is formed, a portion of each crimped end segment projects outwardly from the pan bead and is susceptible of snagging or tearing clothing or scratching the hands or arms of the person handling the pan.